Gene’s “Trigger” Moments Throughout the novel ‘A Separate Peace’ by John Knowles, readers can critically evaluate how the character Gene interacts and responds to other characters. We see examples of this with several other boys at Devon school, including Finny, Brinker, and Leper. For the most part Gene is a fairly easygoing person. However, several times in the novel another character “triggers” a negative response from Gene. Gene is a round character which means the author wrote him to have vivid character traits. A trait readers can explore is his strong temper, and reactions to certain situations.
The first example occurs between Gene and his best friend Finny. These boys are roommates, and it has been revealed that Gene is secretly envious of Finny and his popularity. “Holding firmly to the trunk, I took a step toward him, and then my knees bent and I jounced the limb. Finny, his balance gone, swung his head around to look at me for an instant with extreme interest, and then he tumbled sideways, broke through little branches below and hit the bank with a sickening, unnatural thud. It was
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Brinker is considered to be popular, and friendly to everyone at their school. A few weeks following Finny’s accident, Brinker stops by to talk to Gene. He begins accusing Gene of trying to injure Finny on purpose. These comments hit close to home, and we see Gene lash out at what he says. Page 89 says, “‘Doing away with his roommate so he could have a whole room to himself. Rankest treachery.” He paused impressively. “Practically fratricide.” With a snap of the neck I shook his hand off me, my teeth set, “Brinker…” He raised an arresting hand. “Not a word. Not a sound. You’ll have your day in court.”’ It can be argued that Brinker was purposefully tried to get a rouse out of him. This scene was important because it revealed that somebody knew Gene’s
In a Separate Peace, the main character, Gene Forrester, is constantly pressured into rebelling against the school rules by his best friend Phineas, or “Finny”. Throughout the story it is obvious that Gene is jealous of his friend and therefore succumbs to the pressure Finny puts on him to temporarily find peace with himself. Because he is constantly following the crowd, Gene begins to lose his individuality and finds himself overwhelmed with jealousy. He risks Phineas’ life by shaking the branch of a tree they jump off of, which disables him and ultimately leads to his death. The boys’ friends feel that they need someone to blame for Finny’s tragic injury, so they hold a mock trial to investigate. Gene is under constan...
a little.” (18) In this quote Gene is just saying that he envies his best
At a young age everyone creates an enemy. Peace comes when this enemy leaves or has been destroyed. Everyone must fight, negotiate, and/or struggle with their enemy to be left with nothing but peace. Gene Forrester was the main character in the book A Separate Peace by John Knowles, which took place in the time of World War II. He made his enemy leave, through the death of his best friend Finny. As a result of fighting the wrong battle, Gene apologized to his friend Finny and found peace.
Gene believes that people are deliberately out to get him and concentrates only on grasping the evil within his friends. Therefore, Gene decides to defeat his enemies before he gets defeated himself. During the summer session at Devon, Gene encounters a dark suspicion that his friend Finny is drawing him away from his studies in order to make him fail. This makes sense to Gene since he religiously follows the rules to win approval from the staff at Devon, and anyone who persuades him to disobey these rules wishes failure upon him. Therefore, Finny
Additionally, Gene justifies his hatred towards Finny by assuming Finny feels hatred towards him because of his excellence in academics. At this moment, Gene does not attempt to deny his shadow. Rather, he embraces his shadow completely, allowing it take him over and make false accusations against his own best friend. In Gene’s mind, “Finny had deliberately set out to wreck my studies. That explained blitz all, that explained the nightly meetings of the Super Suicide Society, that explains his insistence that I share all his diversions.
Gene jounces a limb of the tree he and Finny were standing on, causing Finny to fall and break his leg. Gene's jealousy of Finny's perfection causes him to have childish feelings of resentment and hatred. After Finny's leg was broken, Gene realized "that there never was and never could have been any rivalry between" (Knowles 51) him and Finny. Gene looked at himself and became conscious of what a terrible, self-absorbed friend he had been. Understanding there was no competition caused him to discard the majority of his feelings of jealousy. Getting rid of these feelings made him grow-up because he was no longer spending countless hours believing a childish game was being played between Finny and him. Gene began to understand more of Finny's goodness and love towards all, making him strive to be more like Finny.
...monstrates his advantage to take control over every individual without any sincere emotions of any kind. However, the companionship developed through the nature of man, although agonizing, has formed a special bond between the two boys. Gene, nonetheless contends with feelings of alienation and self-estrangement indirectly generated by Finny. The two young men persevere these responsibilities to initiate a sense of inner peace that transpires from adolescence to adulthood. Their experience’s prove to be a symmetric accomplishment of manhood.
One of the climaxes of A Separate Peace happens at the first scene of violence. Until this scene, the reader is unaware of Gene’s “evil side”. He is so overtaken by his jealousy and rage toward Phineas that he succumbs to his emotions and causes Finny to fall off of the tree branch. This shows the immature, childish side of the characters. Not only are they climbing trees, which is a behavior commonly practiced among children, but children also do not know how to handle feelings and emotions, and commonly react with violence. Gene then proceeds to dive off of the branch like nothing happened, apparently satisfied with his “achievement”; showing the reader that, like a child, there is little or no remorse for one’s actions.
In the beginning of the novel, Gene, is a clueless individual. He sees the worst in people and lets his evil side take over not only his mind but also his body. During the tree scene, Gene convinces himself that Finny isn’t his friend, tricking himself into thinking that Finny is a conniving foil that wants to sabotage his academic merit. Gene is furthermore deluded that every time Finny invites Gene somewhere it’s to keep him from studying and doing well. Finny has a reputation for being the the best athlete in school, and Gene attempts to counterbalance Finny’s power by being the best student. After a while of joining Finny’s activities, Gene thinks that Finny is intentionally trying to make him fail out of school. He starts to dislike Finny and his activities, and Gene starts interrupt...
“Never underestimate the power of jealousy and the power of envy to destroy. Never underestimate that” ~ Oliver Stone. Jealousy and envy are dark feelings that plague the mind of the wicked; and if left to grow, it will consume the mind in a dark veil of hatred that will spark violence and maliciousness. In the book “A Separate Peace” by John Knowles two boys named Finny and Gene create a friendship built on the back of envy and jealousy. Even though the two boys look at each other with different views they both saw one thing, and that is skills they will never be able to obtain, or so they think. Just like what Oliver Stone once said “never underestimate the power of jealousy and power of envy to destroy”, ultimately Finny and Genes relationship was destroyed by their constant envy of one another. Finny and Gene’s relationship cannot be a friendship, simply because Gene is unable to like Finny.
In the early pages of the novel, Finny confesses that Gene is his best friend. This is considered a courageous act as the students at Devon rarely show any emotion. And rather than coming back with similar affection, Gene holds back and says nothing. Gene simply cannot handle the fact that Finny is so compassionate, so athletic, so ingenuitive, so perfect. As he put it, "Phineas could get away with anything." (p. 18) In order to protect himself from accepting Finny's compassion and risking emotional suffering, Gene creates a silent rivalry with Finny, and convinced himself that Finny is deliberately attempting to ruin his schoolwork. Gene decides he and Finny are jealous of each other, and reduces their friendship to cold trickery and hostility. Gene becomes disgusted with himself after weeks of the silent rivalry. He finally discovers the truth, that Finny only wants the best for Gene, and had no hidden evil intentions. This creates a conflict for Gene as he is not able to deal with Finny's purity and his own dark emotions. On this very day Finny wants to jump off of the tree branch into the Devon river at the same time as Gene, a "double jump" (p. 51), he says, as a way of bonding. It was this decision, caused by Finny's affection for Gene and outgoing ways that resulted in drastic change for the rest of his life.
In John Knowles’ novel, A Separate Peace, Gene and Phineas strive to find their true selves which is normal for teenagers. The Greek poet and playwright Sophocles suggest that humans never reach a full realization of who they are as individuals until they find another human being with whom the person can share themselves with. This story starts with Gene as an adult reflecting on how he no longer considers places at Devon fearful anymore. Over the course of Gene and Phineas’ friendship, Gene accumulates guilt and jealousy which fabricates fearful places. The fearful places include, the tree and the marble stairs. The reason Gene came back to Devon was to confront places he considered fearful. He no longer considers them fearful places once
Gene Forrester is the Narrator of A Separate Peace, the author has the setting of the novel to a past time. The author may have allowed the story to be told by Forrester explaining his past to allow readers to understand the aging of Gene. Also to let the audience know how Gene felt about his actions in the past. The school Forrester attended was a reserved place where Gene met one of his best friends as well as witnessed one of the worst tragedies to occur at the Devon school. The Devon school has shaped Gene into the man he is now. Gene was a timid and fearful young boy, there were many things in life that caused him to experience great fear including a staircase at the Devon School. Gene and Finny were the best of friends despite Gene’s
The friendship of Gene and Finny was a toxic but unbreakable bond formed through a sense of love and hatred towards one another and what they stood for. Throughout their friendship the two boys experienced both emotional and physical growth, and they discovered the true evil instilled in mankind. John Knowles portrayed these themes through the development of the relationship between Gene and Finny from the start of the novel to the end. A Separate Peace showed Gene giving into his evil nature by pushing Finny off of the tree out of jealousy. The novel also portrayed Gene’s struggle with himself and his twisted relationship with Finny, and how at the end Gene was able to let go and become self-aware. This was, however, at the cost of Finny’s demise.
A Separate Peace revolves around two very different characters Gene and Phineas, and the relationship between them. Knowles uses these two contrasting characters who have very distinct personalities and morals to help understand the reality of mankind. Phineas captures the readers attention from page one. He is athletic, good-looking, clever, and everyone seems to follow his lead. Phineas seems to have a unique sense of peace with himself, and with the world around him. Everyone at Devon seemed to strive to be the best and to let everyone know it. Everyone that is, except for Phineas. One regular day during the summer session, Phineas decides to break the school swimming record when he realizes no one in his class has broken the current record. Phineas may not have been on the school swim team, but that didn’t stop him from hopping him and seeing if he could beat the record. He then breaks the record, but strangely tells Gene, “It’s just between you and me. Don’t say anything about it, to...anyone” (Knowles 45). This statement in itself seems...